Friday, June 17, 2011

Brand Interaction

Any point that your customers interact with your brand is important. Every interaction adds to the customers perception of the brand.

There are also "key interactions" which have a very strong impact on customer loyalty. In your company you must identify the key interactions which take place that make or break your customer relationship. This could be order fulfillment, customer service, sales, etc.

Here is the criteria you can use to identify these points:

1-10 Impact on brand loyalty

1-10 Ability to influence the interaction

1-10 Cost to improve interaction

1-10 Ability to deliver positive brand messages

You need to pay attention to several different areas of customer-brand interaction. These are

Company solicited interaction (such as advertisements)

Interactions required to make a purchase

Interactions with the brand outside of company control

Customer solicited interaction (for example customer service)

Company solicited interaction is easy to control.

The interactions required to make a purchase are more difficult. They may involve third parties. What you should do for these interactions is map out all the stages a customer must go through from beginning to end to make a purchase.

Then analyze each of these interactions to evaluate what kind of brand messages are being sent.

Find ways to innovate and differentiate yourself at these interactions. Use your brand message to develop more powerful ways of delivering value to your customers.

Interactions outside of company control can involve word of mouth, bad press, etc. Good public relation management is the key to success in these interactions.